Group Wikis and Inclusion/Exclusion in Higher Ed - by the Learning Technologies Team at University of Durham

Description

We are using the functionality of VoiceThreads to address a real problem for us as staff developers - how to share good teaching practice. By uploading videos describing the approaches and experiences of teachers, we are providing an easy to access resource for our lecturers to find out about the approaches and projects of their peers. By using the features of VoiceThread, we have captured the perspectives of teaching colleagues and students.

Plan

We were awarded some money for the project. We approached staff who had innovative and successful approaches to teaching and learning and interviewed them. We used flip cams and screen capture software to record the descriptions of the practice. We uploaded the recordings to VoiceThread and approached students and others to add some comments.

Assignment

The aim was to produce a digestible set of resources on approaches to teaching for staff to share. We wanted to capture the valuable experiences of teaching staff and students. We wanted the process to be as simple as possible for all concerned (those accessing the resources, those we interviewed, those adding comments and ourselves as the producers.

Easiest

Using the VoiceThread interface. Finding good practice at Durham was also easy.

Hardest

We had to work out how to convert the video to the best format for VoiceThread. We left ourselves a lot of editing with the first few, but evolved an approach to interviewing where we used specific prompts for the interviewees and captured these as short clips in one take.

Tools

As mentioned, we used flip cams. webcams and tried various tools to edit the video (Movie Maker, Video Pad, any video converter and Camtasia). Camtasia was the best for editing, particularly for incorporating PowerPoint slides.

Tips

Try to simplify the video editing by recording short clips that can be uploaded to VoiceThread without editing or splitting. Try to get the video into the flv format at the correct resolution (600x450)

Variations

We would have liked to record some classroom activity. We would like some that are more student focused.